A Missing Piece in My Shizuka Kudoh Collection

 One of my favorite Shizuka Kudoh albums of her latter career is her first cover album, called “Showa no Kaidan Vol.1”, featuring Shizuka ’s interpretation of a bevy of classics.

I’d originally missed out on purchasing it when it first came out in 2002 and only discovered it through an online forum.

It soon became one of my “go-to’ albums to listen to while riding out to the country, and, as it is with most acts I  discover thru MP3s, once I fell in love with it, I HAD to have the real, physcial CD. But it was LONG out of print and there was seemingly nowhere to get it!

Ebay sellers sold a wide variety of shizuka’s albums there, and I’d periodically check in to see if anyone was selling a copy of Showa no Kaidan, however as it was a later release of hers, there weren’t many copies out there to sell!

I had to be diligent in checking in, so what I did was save the ebay site with the search for Shizuka CD bookmarked under the search bar- that way, ANY time I logged onto ebay, it brought up all the CD items up for sale.

WELL, it took YEARS, a Good THREE years by my count, but one day a few weeks ago, I visited the ebay, site, scrolled down the list of Cds for sale…and SAW a listing for someone selling Showa No Kaidan!!!!!!!

You know I wasted NO TIME purchasing THAT one,and JUST got it in the mail today!!!

This is one of post-2000 Shizuka’s most fun and eclectic albums yet, a VERY wide style of songs here (which I'm guessing are songs chosen from Shizuka’s childhood growing up since the “theme” of the album has a “then and now” motif with pics of a very young Shizuka contrasted with the svelte singer we know today!

below: Front and back covers

booklet pics

The tracklisting:

Genki wo Dashite

(Originally by Yakushimaru Hiroko)

Koibito yo

(Originally by Itsuwa Mayumi)

Casa Blanca Dandy

(Originally by Sawada Kenji)

Kamome wa Kamome

(Originally by Ken Naoko)

Koori no Sekai

(Originally by Inoue Yosui)

Kuro no Funauta

(Originally by Nosaka Akiyuki)

Nan to Naku Nan to Naku

(Originally by Inoue Jun)

Coffee Rumba

and

Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki

(Originally by Nishida Sachiko)

Casbah no Onna

(Originally by Eto Kunieda)

Kuro Yuri no Uta

(Originally by Orii Shigeko)

Tennessee Waltz

(Originally by Eri Chiemi)

Hoshi no Nagare ni

(Originally by Kikuchi Akiko)

Such a wonderful collection of songs which i loved from the get go, it helps that outside of Patti Page's “Tennessee Waltz”, I did not know any of these songs beforehand, so the Shizuka versions are first time I'm hearing them at all!

Can’t wait to take this album out for a spin officially!

Better Late Than Never: Shizuka Kudoh "Aoi Hono"

 I don’t know HOW CD Japan’s artist alerts as supposed to work, but no matter how many times I check off the artists I want to keep track of, the only news they send are of stuff I have no interest in, and I am continually finding I have missed releases of artists I CARE about.
It happened before with Nishida Hikaru, Matsutoya Yumi, and now I find I missed a new Shizuka Kudo CD that came out in March. Fortunately I noticed it in taime to order it while they still had it in stock, but of course the first pressing bonus goods were LONG gone...

Fortunately it was well worth the wait as Aoi Hono continues Shizuka's string of awesome releases, this one yet another Miyuki Nakajima themed album (along with her previous "My Precious" and "My Treasure" releases)!! As some of you may know, Nakajima was the writer behind most of Kudoh's biggest hits, and it seems the tradition continues!

Shizuka Kudoh Laserdisc Collection!!!

 As documented here, though I’ve always liked Shizuka Kudoh’s music, including some big faves like Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku and Doukoku, it wasn’t until fairly recently that I became a huge super-fan of hers, needing to get all her CDs and singles, rarities and B-sides! 
I also wanted to get ahold of Shizuka’s many Concert performances and was grateful to get digital rips of them through a J-pop forum. Through the years I’ve watched and re-watched them all, but there was always a place in my heart that still wanted to get copies of the orginal concerts, and, if possible, in their original Laserdisc release formats!
Why Laserdiscs?  As a fan of 90’s Pony Canyon Idol acts like Coco, Ribbon and Nishida Hikaru, I came to associate its Laserdisc packaging, striking artwork and bonus posters and inserts with my ‘golden age” of J-pop discovery, and, as a Pony Canyon artist herself, really wanted to get those to complete my collection!
Though I’d see a concert video of hers from time to time on ebay (mostly in the form of VHS tapes), it wasn’t until just this past month taht I hit the MOTHERLODE: ALL 8 of Shizuka’s laserdisc releases for one VERY modest price!! Holy Toledo, I wasted NO TIME SMASHING that “Buy it Now” Button, and in JUST a few weeks, got my package in the mail!
WOWOIWOW, Will You LOOK at that!!! So damn BEAUTIFUL, and, as with ALL Pony Canyon releases, placed with bonus items like inserts and postcards! Must have spent a good hour just poring lovingly over the discs…so beautiful!

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a HUGE rehauling to do with my J-pop Laserdisc shelves!!!

Favorite J-Pop Artists: Shizuka Kudoh

 
As less of newer music seems to interest me, I’ve found myself going backwards, digging back into the 80’s and early 90’s J-pop of yesteryear. I originally got into J-pop in mid-1995 and though I did get into the older music then, there was still SO MUCH MORE to discover!

 Right now my favorite J-pop artist must be Shizuka Kudoh, a singer I’ve always liked but now am getting into 100%, doing my best to acquire all of her music and listening to at least one of her albums every day!

I first fell in love with Shizuka with her song “Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku” after seeing a clip of her singing it on the classic “Hey Hey Hey Music Champ”. What a cool freaking song!!! I ordered a copy of the single immediately!, and when I got it I loved not only the single’s A side but the beautiful and sweet B side “Serenade”.I was interested enough with her enough to pick up her (then) latest single “Blue Velvet” and it was through an appearance of Utaban promoting this song where they showed clips of her singing her debut singles like “Mugon Iroppoi” and Fu-Ji-Tsu” and I had to get those, too!

The first Kohaku I ever saw was the 1995 Year show, but through local Japan Video rental shops and old copies my friend had recorded, I was able to see show from 1994, 1993 , 1992 and even earlier! And it was on the 1993 Kohaku that I first saw her wonderful performance of “Doukoku” which would go on to become yet another HUGE fave of mine! 

Next my friend Dan-O burned me a copy of his Twin-Best Shizuka Kudoh Collection “SHE~ Best of Best”...This was back when burning a CD for your friends was an art and he even printed pictures on the CDs as you can see here…what a pal!

 I was grateful for the discs and wasted no time throwing it onto my latest ‘cruising mix tape”, and  there was ONE SONG that stood out for me. I always knew Shizuka’s music was a bit on the more rock style (though she had a lot of ballads) than her counterparts like Miho Nakayama and Kyoko Koizumi, but there was one track on side one of SHE Best of Best that simply ROCKED the HOUSE! Such a masterpiece of a song: pounding drums, blaring horns and a dense bass track growling underneath, this was one song that begged to be BLASTED on FULL VOLUME! 

Sadly, the track was written in a  kanji i couldn’t read, and without the immediate help of the internet (ah we were so innocent back then!) I just called it ‘That Rockin’ Song”, and it became my reason to pop in the disc!

Fast forward to early this year and I come across an 80’s-themed J-pop forum featuring those classic artists and albums of the late 80’s early 90s…and saw they had an album up by Shizuka called “Trinity”.

I’d picked up a few of Shizuka’s earlier CDs from Book Off and Nippon Shoten over the years, such as "Shizuka", "Mysterious","Harvest", and "Karelia", but I’d never heard this album before. I downloaded it right away, and when I loaded it up and played it in my car the following evening, I was hit with one of the most gripping and interesting albums I’d heard in a awhile: full of catchy New-wave infused hits, Sentimental “Big band” pop tracks, smoky ballads as well as a few hard-rockers...INCLUDING that rockin’ song from SHE Best of Best!

Now with the internet at my disposal I did some googling and FINALLY found out the song was called “Kiri No Kanata E" (Beyond The Mist)! and it was this cherry on top that drove Trinity to become my favorite album to listen to so far this year!

With Trinity completely winning me over, I had to hear more, and I began collecting whatever albums I could find of hers that I'd missed out on, Rosette, Mind Universe, Expose, etc, and with each new album I acquired, the more BLOWN AWAY I was by this woman as each CD became a new favorite to listen to! Right now I am trying to get all her Live Concerts but the one I was MOST trying to acquire was her 1992 “Koe wo Kikasete” Concert Tour as this is the one where she performed Kiri No Kanata E LIVE! 

So far I've only been able to get digital rips of the concerts (which some kind soul uploaded onto a forum), but  it will definitely suffice to satiate my Shizuka hunger!!!! And o0f course the first one I checked out was Koe Wa Kikasete and gotta say- this was one totally KICK-BUTT concert! Oh MAN, Shizuka was as FIERCE and SULTRY as I expected her to be and it was a THRILL to see so many of my (new) favorite songs from her being done live for the first time! So many faves but of course the BIG performance for me was getting to see her belt out Kiri No Kanata E...so, sooooo AWESOME!

This seems to be the ONLY clip of Shizuka doing this song. Going onto Youtube I was hoping to see more, but all I could find was this (actually pretty great) video of a Japanese fan belting it out in a Karaoke room. Even in this clip you can feel the energy of the song, and in the video’s description, the girl writes: “Because this was an album-only song, probably only Shizuka fans would know it? ^^…My favorite Shizuka song!”

Indeed, this song wasn’t a single, and in fact, the liner notes of She Best Of Best CD says that the reason the song was included in the Twin Best Collection in the first place was because Shizuka herself loved it so much and always regretted that it wasn’t released as a proper single.  Even SHIZUKA knows how awesome this song is! Speaking of which, Book Off once again came to my rescue when I visited it one evening and found they had a perfect copy of SHE Best of Best for sale! I grabbed that one up right away and now finally own a copy of my very own in my meager (but still growing) Shizuka Kudoh Collection!

For the moment, I am still enjoying discovering the wonder of her album back-catalogue. There are still so much more I need to get- they are all so damn GOOD! For someone whom I once only casually liked, Shizuka Kudoh has moved into my Top Ten FAVE Jpop artists of all time!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

The 90's Were an Incredible Time!

Princess Princess with Hikaru Genji behind

So I was watching an old video from 1992 of Princess Princess on the J-Pop Music Show "Music Station" where the girls had come on to promote their new song "Pilot Ni Naritakute". During their interview I noticed Hikaru Genji sitting behind them, and then I looked at the OTHER artists on those bleachers... WOW, Willya look at all of that freakin' TALENT there! Chisato Moritaka, Chage and Aska...

Behind Kaori you can see Pretty Chisato Moritaka ...

(Judging by the dress, was Chisato going to sing Ame?)

Chage and Aska laughing it up in the sidelines...

Nakayama Miho, Kudoh Shizuka, and...?

Also Miho Nakayama, Shizuka Kudoh and Seiko Matsuda!!!!

Also on the bill but not pictured here is Akina Nakamori!

Man, the 90's will always be,for ME at least, the GREATEST J-pop era EVER!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

More "Momen No Handkerchief"

Thought I’d said all I had to say about that awesome Ota Hiromi song “Momen No Handkerchief” after talking about both Ota Hiromi and Ayase Haruka’s versions, but I somehow COMPLETETLY FORGOT I had this AWESOME performance of the song from an old episode of Music Fair featuring Kudoh Shizuka, Moritaka Chisato AND the Gospellers!! MAN, how’s THAT for a line-up?! And just as you would have expected, they sound just freakin’ incredible! Shizuka-chan in particular has this song DOWN, for some reason…she sounds just MADE to cover this!!

After this the three artists also did covers of songs like “Blue Light Yokohama” and “Gin Gira Gin Ni Sarigenaku”(!) and they even found time for both Shizuka and Chisato to duet “Junanasai”, a song that Chisato had NO PROBLEM singing, naturally!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Kudoh Shizuka / Doukoku

It seems strange to think about, but there was a time when you could stroll into any of the many japanese video stores around town, and rent the NHK Kouhaku of the year, checking it out like any other movie or video! And it was in this way that in early 1996 I was able to view the 1993 Kohaku of years past!
Initially, I really wanted to see the ’93 Kohaku for Moritaka Chisato’s performance (she did “Watashi No Natsu” in front of a huge whale….CUTEST perf ever!) but I ended up loving it for a performance by ANOTHER vocallist- The unexpected surprise fave of mine was the latest single from Shizuka Kudoh, the queen of Pony Canyon and late of Onyanko Club!
As soon as that SONG started- with its very Quarterflash sounding horns and driving beat, I knew it was a winner already, but what really hooked me was the catchy chorus and hook, when she sang the line,“Tomodachi nanka janai toiu omoi”…Shizuka sounded so cool and sultry belting this one out, ARGH! I just LOVED IT!!

And furthermore, you have to understand…Shizuka looked unbelievable here…I don’t think I ever saw her looking so beautiful and elegant…I was completely smitten right off the bat!

I really wanted a copy of Doukoku for myself, but seeing as how the CD single was over two years old, it was no longer “on the shelves” anywhere, and I needed to special order it, but that in itself presented a problem! You see, to fill in the special order form at Hakubundo, I would have had to know how to either write the english romanized title, or write the song title in kanji…and I couldn't do either of them!
The title of the song was: 慟哭 , two really unrecognizable kanjis (for me), and after hours and hours of poring over my “Kanji ABC’s” book (given to me years ago as a gift from Dayone) to try and “hunt down” the characters without luck, I gave up. It was just too darn complicated for me to crack!
Fortunately for me, I had a friend who had a real knack for figuring out kanji (using that stroke order formula that I find utterly incomprehensible) and was able to determine that the song title was either DOUKOKU or some other alternate translation, that of which I can’t remember for the life of me. But for the most part, I had my title! YES!
Well, sad to say, despite putting in that order and waiting for months, the single never did come in for me. It simply had been too long since its initial release for me to get a copy of my own! But once again Dayone came to my rescue when he got me a copy of Shizuka’s two-disc greatest hits package SHE~BEST OF BEST, and you could have heard my cheers of happiness all the way in Japan when I saw Doukoku listed on the tracklisting! YATTA!
Addendum: In 2008, through the awesome services of (of all places) the Hello Project Goods Shop, I was FINALLY able to get a copy of the very single you see pictured above! WHEW!

Favorite J-pop Singles: Kudoh Shizuka / Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku

Back in my early days of J-pop love, most of my exposure to all those other groups out there came from Japanese shows like Music Fair and Popjam, but by far the most informative and rockin’ one had to be HEY HEY HEY Music Champ!  Hosted by DOWNTOWN, this show was one that really catered to the classic artists, and what they would do is have a certain so-called “Music Champ” come onto the show each episode, and have the artist sing a medley of two or three classic hits, sit down for an interview, and then sing their latest song they were promoting.

  This was an awesome formula, and it was cool to be introduced to all these artists I either didn’t know or only knew a little of, and every once in a while, they would have these Hey Hey Hey SPECIALS, where they would showcase past guests and show snippets of them being interviewed as well as an edited clip of the most popular of the songs they’d performed.

I was watching this one particular special  primarily for Princess Princess’ appearance (the clip they showed was them doing “Diamonds, of course), but it was this clip of exotic Kudoh Shizuka singing an insanely catchy tune called “Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku” that really piqued my interest!

Sounding almost SKA-like in mood, this bouncy number (featuring an incredibly giggly Shizuka!) immediately caught my attention with its infectious CHOTTO MATTE YO NE! verses accented with  jazzy horns, and then that cooing chorus of “Iiyo, Iiyo…IIYO!” DAMN, this song was so damn catchy, I must have re-watched that clip a hundred times, and I immediately asked the j-pop buyer if he could get the single for me the following day!

The more I fell in love with this song, the more I cursed the fact that it was such a short, truncated clip, and I remember catching the bus into town to my japanese video rental store, hoping and praying that they’d have that original Hey Hey Hey episode that Shizuka appeared in for me to borrow! Well, that didn’t happen, but some good luck came my way when the j-pop buyer told me that he was indeed able to order the single for me, and it arrived in only a few weeks time!!!

A year or so later I got ahold of a copy of the 1990(!) Red And White Song Festival, and I was in for the THRILL OF MY LIFE when I finally got to see a sexy and sultry Shizuka performing Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku in its ENTIRETY!!!! Iiyo Iiyo iiyo!!!!

To this day Kuchibiru Kara Biyaku remains my favorite song from Mrs. Takuya Kimura!

PS: I might even add that the c/w song "Serenade" is one of Shizuka's most beautiful songs, as well!